The Undead Heart

by Tate Jackson

  “You can’t protect her from everything, brother.”

  “Apparently not. I could protect her from falling in the water, being run down, a dog bite, but when she was raped, I couldn’t be bothered to be there.”

  “If you had known, you would have been there.”

  “If I had been watching her like I should have, I would have known. He could have killed her!”

  “He didn’t kill her, brother. She’s here now.”

  “No thanks to me.”

  “You can’t be that way. We don’t know that this will happen again in the future.”

  “I know it won’t happen again. It won’t help my Beck, though. My chance to save her from that is gone.”

  “I don’t know how to help you with this.”

  “You can’t help me. No one can,” he said, defeated.

  “I can,” Beck said from behind him. “I can help you,” she said and held her hand out to him.

  She had come back to him.

  ***

  “I shouldn’t have done that. It was hateful.”

  “I deserved it.”

  She felt extremely guilty for showing him her memory of the rape. She had no right to be angry with him about what had happened that night.

  “No, you didn’t deserve it.”

  Leso was glaring at her, and she could feel his anger. “You didn’t have to do this to him.”

  “I know. I’m sorry for it. Could you give us a minute alone, please?”

  “What for? He is already down. Are you planning on kicking him?” Leso snarled.

  “Leso, just go,” Richard said.

  Leso gave her one more nasty look before walking off. Leso had every right to be mad at her for what she had done. She was mad at herself. What had happened to her was in no way Richard’s fault. That fault lay only with Alex.

  “I wish you could just forget what I showed you. You never should have seen it,” she apologized.

  “It should have never happened in the first place. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you,” he said, not looking at her.

  “It’s not your fault you weren’t there, it’s mine,” she stated simply as she sat down next to him on the ground.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Because I didn’t tell you about it when I was sent here the first time. I could have said something, and you would have stopped it, but for whatever reason, I choose not to. That’s my fault.”

  “It was not your fault, Beck.”

  “The rape itself wasn’t my fault, I know that, but the decisions I made were my fault. I knew Alex was a jerk. Everybody in school knew he was a jerk.”

  “What is a ‘jerk’?”

  “An asshole, you know, he was mean, rude, and hateful.”

  “Why did you go out with him if you knew he was a jerk?”

  “Because he was also gorgeous and popular. I’d never been asked out on a date before. Hell, I’d never really had any friends, much less a boyfriend. When Alex asked me, I jumped at the chance to go out with him. I didn’t stop to think about why he wanted to go out with me. That part was my fault.”

  “Beck, you didn’t deserve what he did to you just because you wanted to go out on a date.”

  “I didn’t say that I did. No woman deserves that. I only said that I should have given some thought as to why he was asking me out.”

  “That is asinine. You are a beautiful woman. What male would not want to go on a date with you?”

  “All of them, actually,” she said with a smile. “I was kind of the school freak, but thank you.”

  “You’re not a freak, Little One.”

  “I know that now, but you couldn’t have convinced me of that then. Everyone with the exception of Bev and my grandmother thought I was a freak of nature. Even my parents.”

  “They just didn’t understand you.”

  “And you do?” she laughed. “Not exactly, but I accept you,” he said softly. She could feel his misery subsiding and was glad for it. As his misery ebbed, so did hers.

  “It’s probably easier for you to accept me because you’ve been around Leso for so long.”

  “I’ll grant you that, but I love you, so I would have accepted you anyway.”

  “I know you would have, but children aren’t like that. If you want to find the cruelest person in the world, you should look to the playground.”

  “How did you cope with it so well? I mean, you’re so sexually uninhibited that if you hadn’t have told me, I never would have guessed that anything of this nature had ever happened to you.”

  “That’s because of you. You told me once that the first time I came back to this time, that I was very self-conscience. I’m not surprised. I didn’t have great self-esteem anyway, but after the attack, it was trashed. My parents didn’t care about what Alex had done to me. They wanted to drop the charges against him. I wouldn’t have even reported what had happened to the police if it hadn’t have been for Bev. She insisted on it.”

  “Why wouldn’t your parents have wanted you to report what had happened? Did they not understand that you had been a victim of a violent crime?” he asked, confused.

  “Oh, they understood. They just thought that it was my fault.”

  “They what?!”

  “My mother said I had probably given Alex mixed signals, and that he hadn’t known that I didn’t want it. My father believed that I had consented to the sex, had changed my mind, and cried rape after it was over.”

  “But you were severely beaten! Surely they didn’t think that was consensual.”

  She could feel his anger and was a little touched by it.

  “They wouldn’t admit that I had anything worse than bumps and bruises. They said that Alex may have gotten a little rough, but nothing he should have to go to jail for. My mother said that if I didn’t drop the charges against him that I would embarrass the whole family.”

  “Bumps and bruises? Your bones were broken! What’s wrong with those people?!”

  She didn’t know how to explain her parents to him when she didn’t really understand them herself. They’d never really acted like parents are supposed to act, not to her anyway. They had tried to be parents to Bev, but when Bev was old enough to realize how they treated Beck, she’d wanted as little to do with them as possible. By the time Bev had moved into the dorm at Austin Peay, she had had no use for them at all.

  “My parents are all about appearances and Alex’s parents were well known in our community. My parents didn’t want me to offend them with frivolous charges against their son.”

  “Frivolous charges? Are your parents mentally ill?”

  “No, but they act like it sometimes. They don’t care how things are, just how they look.”

  “What kind of parents treat their child like that? Why would they care what other people think when their child had been hurt the way you were?”

  “Bev felt the same way. She flew into a rage at them when they told me the attack was my fault. She told them what deplorable parents they were and that they were pitiful excuses for human beings. I’ve never seen her as mad as she was then. She actually hit our mother,” she smiled. “I’m glad she did. I wish I could reach them right now. It sounds like they needed some sense shaken into them.”

  “It wouldn’t do any good. You can’t change people who don’t want to change, and they don’t matter to me and Bev anyway. Besides, we were talking about how you changed me, remember?”

  “How could I have changed you?”

  “The first time I met you was when I came to the past the last time. I was 26 years old, just like I am now. The difference now is the first time I didn’t know you, this time I did.”

  “How does that matter?”

  “Well, I figure the first time I had ten years to agonize over what had happened to me. Ten years for me to close up and become bitter. This time, I met you not even two years after it had happened. I had decided right after the rape that I never wanted to have a man in my life,
that I didn’t need one. I thought I could live my life just fine alone.

  “I believed that until you showed up in my college parking lot. That’s when I found out that my life would be empty without you in it. After that I didn’t just think about the rape that much. It still crossed my mind from time to time, but it wasn’t my main focus anymore. It just became part of my passed, where it belonged.”

  “You’re stronger than most women.”

  “No, I’m not. Everybody is different, so they deal with things differently. You can’t just say that one person is stronger than another, that’s not fair. And not everyone has someone like you to crush their assailants for them.”

  “But I didn’t stop him.”

  “You didn’t stop him from attacking me, but you did stop him. As soon as I told you about it, you found him and crushed his spine.”

  “That’s all I did to him?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “No, it is not enough. He will not get off so lightly the next time I see him,” he promised. “You had to learn to fight because I couldn’t protect you.”

  “What? No, that’s not why I learned to fight. I learned to fight so I could defend myself. It had nothing to do with you. Everyone should be able to defend themselves. You don’t feel as weak if you know you can fight, even if you never have to. I may not be able to really take down a vampyre or a hunter, but I can stand toe to toe with any human and not be afraid.”

  “You can’t beat us, so you teach us,” he said with a small smile. “You don’t blame me for what happened to you?”

  “No, I did for a few minutes, but not anymore. I don’t want you to blame yourself either.”

  “I don’t know how to not blame myself for this. I don’t know how to deal with this at all.”

  “You have to do it the same way I did, just let it go. I know it’s not easy to do, but in the end, it’s the only thing you can do.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that.”

  “You will, but it will take awhile,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Now that I have you here, there’s something else I want to talk to you about. Something I need you to do.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t come to me in the future.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I’m selfish. Look, the first time I was sent back in time, I didn’t need your help to do it. That leads me to believe I would have studied Jack the Ripper on my own, without your suggestion. Please, by all means, save me from the accidents I would have been in, but that’s it.”

  “But why?” he asked again. “I told you, I’m selfish. I’m the only Beck I want you to ever be with.” He laughed. “But she would be you.”

  “Yes and no. Look, will you just do what I’m asking please?”

  “If that’s what you want, of course I’ll do it,” he said with a small smile. “Anything else you want me to do?”

  “Just be there when I step back into my time.”

  “That, I will definitely do.”

  Chapter Ten

  Leso didn’t speak to her for three days. She hated him being so angry with her, but she understood. It wasn’t until the rest of the family had gone hunting that she had a chance to explain herself.

  “You’re still mad at me.”

  “Very much so,” Leso said stiffly. “I am sorry I did that to him.”

  “You hurt him on purpose, Beck. I never thought that you would do that.”

  “I wish I hadn’t of, but I can’t change what I did.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  She told him about her attack, her injuries, Richard not letting her go until she told him, and about how, in that moment, she had blamed him for it.

  “You could have just explained it to him.”

  “I could have, but I was angry. I wanted him to feel the whole scope of what I had gone through. It was a mistake.”

  “It was a mistake, but I understand a little better now about why you did it. How are you doing with this?”

  “I’m okay with it now. It took me a long time, but I got over it.”

  “Beck, do you know where Richard was when it happened?”

  “No, not really. He stayed away from me as much as he could. He said that he hadn’t wanted to ‘alter my personality’ by being with me before it was time. He shot that plan all to hell when I started college. Even then, he didn’t spend much time with me, but we did have some nights together, not many, but enough.”

  “Enough for what?”

  “Enough to ‘alter my personality’. It changed me just knowing that he was around, that he was waiting for me. I just wish I knew what to do now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he hasn’t touched me since he found out what happened to me. I think I might disgust him now,” she whispered quietly. “Beck, no! How can you think that?”

  “What else am I supposed to think?”

  “You said you told him before, in your time. How did he react then?”

  “Not like this. When I showed him before, he went and crushed the guy that did it, but when he came back, he seemed fine.”

  “This time there’s nothing he can do, no one to take his anger out on,” Leso said.

  “Or, maybe he thinks I’m unclean; contaminated somehow. The Richard I first met was around for a lot longer than this Richard. Maybe the one I met was better able to deal with this than this Richard is.”

  “He’s the same Richard, Beck.”

  “Well, he is and he isn’t. He is the same person, but when I met him, he had been through over a hundred years more of life. He’d watched the world as it changed around him. Things are different in my time, more open. Maybe he needed those years to prepare him for something like this.”

  “You’re wrong, you have to be. Richard loves you, Beck.”

  “I know he does, but maybe this is how it’s going to be until I get back to my time. Maybe he needs all those years to deal with this.”

  “You can’t be right. Nothing could change the way he feels about you. You should talk to him.”

  “No, I won’t. I won’t talk to him anymore about this. I’ve said all I can about it, and I’m done. If he can’t bring himself to touch me, that’s fine, but I won’t beg for his love,” she said and walked away.

  ***

  She was hurt by Richard’s reaction to this, but she wouldn’t tell him that. He would either get over it or he wouldn’t, but it was up to him. She was hot and tired. It was getting late and all she wanted to do was strip down and go to sleep. It was even hotter in their second story bedroom. She threw the windows open, stripped off all her clothes, and feel asleep on top of the sheets of their bed.

  She was dreaming of air conditioning and cold Coke when the dream changed: She and Richard were walking side by side, it was dark out. Something grabbed her and snatched her away from him and up into the air. She could see herself dangling in what seemed to be mid-air. She woke up to the sound of the bedroom door slamming shut. It was dark in the room, but she could make out the shape of Richard standing by the door.

  “I was sleeping, damn it!” she snapped. She had never liked being woken up.

  “Good! Now we’re both mad!” he snapped back and started undressing.“What’s your problem?” she inquired while watching him pull off the last of his clothes.

  “You first,” he said.

  “I don’t have a problem.”

  “Don’t you? Because that’s not what Leso seemed to think when he was cursing me out.”

  Leso! Ohh, she was going to chop his head off herself! How could he tell Richard what they had talked about? She never would have said anything to him if she had known that he was going to be a tattletale!

  “How in the bloody hell can you think that I don’t want to touch you? That you could ever disgust or repulse me?’ he growled.

  “What else am I supposed to think? You haven’t so much as kissed me on the cheek since you found out what Alex d
id to me! If that’s not your problem; then what is? Do I have cooties now or something?”

  That stopped him for a second. “What is a cootie?”

  “Tiny little germs,” she snapped at him. They couldn’t even argue properly, because he didn’t understand her. It was very frustrating! “You don’t have cooties or anything else. I haven’t touched you because I didn’t think you would want me to.”

  It felt very strange to be arguing with him while they were naked. “Well, you were wrong. What Alex did to me has nothing to do with how I feel about you. If you had listened to me, you would have known that! For your information, every time I have made love to you has been after that had happened! That’s something else you should have figured out on your own.”

  “I just thought…,” he started to say, but she cut him off. “Well, stop thinking! It doesn’t seem to work out well for you when you do, and I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself with the effort!” she yelled. She barely saw him move in the darkness. One second, he was at the foot of the bed, then the next, he was on top of her, crushing her lips with his. He stole away any breath she had to argue. He showed her exactly how much she did not disgust him, pressing her body over and over into the bed. When it was over, he collapsed on the bed beside her.

  “You have to be the most exasperating woman I have met.”

  “Leso shouldn’t have told you what we talked about. It was personal.”

  “Oh, he didn’t tell me. He yelled it at me, nearly bit my head off. But you’re right, he shouldn’t have told me, you should have. I’m not like you and Leso. I don’t know what you’re feeling unless you tell me.”

  “Then maybe you should ask me the next time.”

  “Does everything have to be an argument with you?” he growled. “Not always, but most of the time, I’ll back down when I’m wrong.”

  “You never back down.”

  “I’m never wrong.”

  As she was falling back to sleep, she remembered her vision from earlier; the vision of her death as seen through Richard’s eyes. Well, she hadn’t actually seen herself die, but she knew the attempt was still going to be made. When she’d been killed in the past, Elderson had told Richard that he would let her live if Richard and his family would join his clan. It was a lie. He’d never intended to let any of them live. She hoped that this time around, Elderson would be the one to die.